cy of misplaced concreteness: the line had been taken for the reality so literally that when it wasmischievously moved, the reality was thought to have changed. Days of respite from the threat of death were gained.The central moral conflict of the book lies in the relationship between the system and its rules and the humanity which pays the price for the defences of those incharge and the system they created and maintain at the expense of human decency. This is the point of the book's title. Whenever you try to behave sensibly andlook after yourself in a crazy world, there's a catch, a catch which has entered the language as a result of Heller's book. Catch-22 takes many forms, but the centralone is that you don't have to fly any more missions if you're crazy, but you have to ask first, and anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't crazy (p.46)'There was only one catch and that was catch 22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was theprocess of a rational mind. Orr [Yossarian's tent-mate and a pilot who kept crashing and of whom more anon] was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to dowas ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, butif he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to, but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved verydeeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.'"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.'"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed (p. 46). Catch-22 appears at intervals throughout the book (e.g., pp. 104,172-3), but it is revealed most clearly in two incidents, the first when an old Italian woman unpacksit to its essence when Yossarian asks her by what right the Military Police chased all the girls away from the...
